


Verses of Fluoride Insanity

by Gjak



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Character Development, Dark, Denial, Disturbing Themes, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Falling In Love, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Manhandling, Minor Character(s), Possessive Behavior, Slow Build, Some Plot, Swearing, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-12 11:15:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7932562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gjak/pseuds/Gjak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all started when Bruce Wayne, number one jock and the golden boy of Gotham High, pushed him off the school rooftop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And he said

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Made you look.”

 

Ha. Ha. Ha!

Bruce stiffens. His knuckles white, fingers curled tight around the edge of the railing. A part of him wants to kick him away, let him fall six storeys below onto the concrete. The other part of him wants to pull him up. Back up where they can exhale, knowing, that they can still breathe.

Right now, he wants the pale faced psycho to shut the hell up. So he can make up his mind.

 

“You’re cute when you’re angry, Brucie boy.” He mutters hoarsely, up at Bruce who finally snaps out of it and lunges for the arms hanging off the steel bars.

“You’re insane.”

“No less than you.” The green eyes cackle away like a madman, his laughter scratching the wind. “ _Let me fall_. You know you want to.”

The conflict gets the better of him. Bruce decides not to answer, instead, grunts angrily when he attempts to heave up the body that’s deliberately making it harder to be hauled up back to safety. He doesn’t get it. Bruce is irritated at the knowing look in the sinister glow of his face, like he understands.

“You don’t know what I want.” Bruce pants.

“You want to hurt something.”

The eyes narrow and it reminds Bruce of a snake. It slithers uncomfortably in his stomach, a strain that threats to strangle his worthless feelings. He hesitates, arms still on the other’s shoulders, half-way through pulling him over the railings. They meet eyes, faces closer than they should be.

“Let it out Bruce Wayne, throwing cans into the air ain’t getting you anywhere near sanity, honey cakes.”

 

Bruce can keep his hands from shaking, but he can’t hide the quake in his eyes. The other licks the look on his face as if they’re fucking delicious. It’s a crisp little war when they both hold their ground and turn on the hard grips, fingers desperate to hold it down and push away.

“This,” The paler one mutters. He grab the hands holding onto this shoulders, and before Bruce can even shout out, drives his nails into the flesh to push away with a kick.

 

The wind is meaningless against the howls in Bruce Wayne’s ears. The last thing he remembers is the unpleasant smile, falling down. Down. Down.

_Is how you bite._

 

* * *

 

 

They don’t know a thing. Oblivious idiots.

Of the pale fiend with eccentric green hair, their very own John Doe of Gotham High. They don’t hear when the freak show comes to town, don’t know and don’t care for what his name is. Everyone is just concerned of how much of a disaster he’ll be whenever they see his face. It makes it harder for Bruce to pop him out in the conversations he pretends to have with people, and it’s even harder to find him.

 

Which was why there was no time to explain things when he pushed the green haired maniac against the wall.

He takes it well, despite the gangly body crashing against the hard surface with a loud crack. Bruce doubts his eyes and stares, ignoring how powerful the blow was, and the fact that it probably hurt.

“Brucie!” He exclaims. His lipstick smudged lips splitting into a wide grin. “I almost thought you forgot about me.”

“Don’t joke around damn it, I was looking for you for days, you knew that. Where the hell were you?”

The hands pressing the rogue against the wall seemed almost aggressive, Bruce being afraid of him disappearing again. He still remembers the incident a week ago, where he frantically threw his arms over the railing and ended up staring down below to find nothing there. Not even a corpse.

Bruce is so hyped with the fact that he finally found the psycho he was looking for, he almost forgot they were in the middle of a moving crowd. They’d stopped to watch the two unlikely pairing, eyes staring, and voices whispering. It doesn’t help that he looks like a jock about to rip apart the class clown.

 

“Funny. I had a feeling you were on a blind scavenger hunt.”

He giggles feverishly, eyes darting through the crowd that they were starting to draw. Most of them are ready to see a fight, and Bruce follows the scene in a quiet discontent. The bigger youth leans closer into the paler face, whispering under his breath.

“You’re going to follow me out.”

“Nah, I have better things to do.” The rogue whispers back, gaining an irritated squeeze on his shoulder.

“I’m not asking.”

Warning clear and low, Bruce is met with the intensity that the nameless other stares at him with. His grin is too big, and it causes a weird sensation in Wayne’s nerves. Bruce can see him chewing on his reddened lips, it’s hypnotising, in a weird way.

 

Then without warning, the pale hands pop something out the pockets of his jeans, and they go spilling onto the floor before anyone can react. Bruce is distracted by the noise of marbles rolling onto the surface, and has no time to do anything else until one of them explodes.

It’s a frenzied panic of fireworks in the corridors, and the cheerleaders are the first to scream their heads off. Everything is reduced to chaos when the light goes off, the sound of popping firecrackers rolling around the packed hallways, banging louder than the guns going off.

There’s a commotion through everything, and Bruce loses the grip on the other’s shoulder when the flooding wave of people pour onto him. He curses, loud and clear for the world to hear, but it’s muted into the cries of the other students who are sucked up into the chaotic vortex. It’s no surprise Bruce Wayne loses the green eyed wacko, one more time.

The fire alarm goes off, and the corridor is soon flooding with artificial rain. Wayne lands a punch at the wet, empty wall.

 

* * *

 

 

Selina Kyle laughs when she sees Bruce brooding over at detention, her long legs tucked upon the desk in front of her. _Busy doing some early November parties eh?_ She remarks in her playful voice, and he wishes her to be someplace else, far away from him. That is, until she brings up his newly found nemesis into their one-sided conversation.

Surprisingly, she knows more about the green haired psycho than the other oblivious idiots. It surprises him that the guy was in the same year as he was, because Bruce doesn’t recall ever seeing him anywhere.

“The guy’s sort of a fairy tale creature for the freshmen.” She adds, blowing dirt off her nails; “Doesn’t show up around the others very much.”

“What’s his name?”

“Nobody knows.”

“It’s impossible for no one to know a guy’s name.”

“Well, here’s a fact, Wayne. Nobody knows.” The ebon haired girl rolls her eyes, amplifying how surreal it sounds. “The old geezers don’t bring him up, and the new teaches don’t have a clue, because if you look at his student records, his name is kind of disfigured, everywhere. Besides, I don’t think anyone would care that much about the piece of work to figure out his name.”

Bruce furrows his brows. For all he knows, his mad little freak is starting to sound like a unicorn. She sees his expression and manages another little snigger.

“Harley calls him J.”

“Harley?”

“The Quinzel girl. You’ve seen her in the acrobatics team at the sports recreation day.”

Yes, Bruce has seen her. He never knew her name, but knows her face. It’s hard to forget about someone like Harleen Quinzel, she was responsible for the last guy in his clique breaking his legs when he made a sick joke of her leotard.

 

Strangely, this newfound knowledge makes him pay more attention to her presence, which he never really minded to care before. It’s curiously bugging him that there would actually be other people that the mysterious green haired presence would be talking to, when he’s deliberately avoiding him.

This does something to his mood, and Bruce finds himself digging nails into his chin when he silently stalks around in the shaded bench, watching the acrobatics team pass by the cafeteria.

There is Harleen Quinzel, walking far apart from the other girls on her own. She doesn’t seem to mind that no one really tries to get close to her, and feeds no attention to the whispering behind her back.

It takes a moment before she notices Bruce staring at her from the distance, and they stand still in their cold fractured seconds. The blonde girl lifts up her hand, Bruce shifts uncomfortably as he watches her flip him off. One of the jocks on his right sees this, and snorted at the sight.

“What a bitch.”

 

Bruce tries to force out a pretended smile at this distasteful remark.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s hard for Bruce to be inconspicuous when he tries to approach Harley. He’s the number one jock in Gotham High, ace player of the representative baseball team which was a big thing for the school folks. Keeping up this Wayne image was, on Bruce’s part, ironically tedious. All the things he pretends to be, the arrogant rich boy, popular with the girls, future face of Gotham City. It becomes a burden at times when he really wished he could just be himself.

So the ultimatum was bothersome when he tried to get a quiet time to talk to Harley Quinn, who the others thought of as the lunatic that doesn’t stand in Wayne’s league to be talked to. She seems to notice the antagonizing stares, and doesn’t hesitate to show the feral dislike towards the opinion.

 

Bruce is completely ignored in the first few attempts to get to her, and when he finally does find the right moment, he makes a bad decision out of his words.

“I need to find J.”

Harley narrows her eyes, lips biting thin.

“Why? So you can beat him up again?”

“What? No.”

“I saw you in the corridor Wayne,” She mutters, her voice passive with disgust. “You should see the bruise on his shoulder.”

Something cold and unpleasant pokes at Bruce, and he stands there unable to refute. It’s an unstable silence that passes between them, Harley pushes past, beating her shoulders against his broader ones. She doesn’t look back, and Bruce can’t help but feel that he doesn’t deserve even a second glance.

Though she does make him feel unwanted, it doesn’t encourage him to give up. Bruce persistently hovers around the eccentric blonde for a few more days. He hopes for a chance to explain things to her, and apologize, but has no words that would so bravely come out of his mouth. He chokes every time they coincidentally run into each other, and either Harley makes a dramatic exit out of his sight, or Bruce moves away in an awkward fit which he later beats himself up for.

He hadn’t intended to damage his enigma. It just, sort of, happened. Now he stirs, blind at the would-be ‘friends’ he have, imagining ugly bruises on the pale shoulders until the thoughts make him sick.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s Wednesday when something up high figured Bruce has suffered enough and deserve a glimpse of his puzzle piece.

Bruce catches the pale face among Harvey Dent’s grimy preppies. Seeing him among the gloomy looking bunch makes his green hair and pale complexion stand out even more, like a sore thumb in your left hand. Bruce walks up closer, just realising how small he looks besides someone like Dent, in his black jeans and a deep purple bomber jacket hanging loosely off his lean body frame.

It might be that Harvey was just too big and looked too menacing in comparison, but Bruce has to stamp on the urge to barge right between them and pull the paler one out from where he stood.

Harvey stands still, eyes to the corner of nowhere while listening to the clown whisper something in his ears, and looks just about ready to start growling. Bruce is opening his mouth to call out J, arms already reaching out before Harvey’s boys notice him approaching. They stand in his way, blocking the path so suddenly that Bruce physically bumps into them, staggering the formation.

He locks his gaze with Harvey, who was looking back at him with disgruntled surprise. Bruce turns his head around to find the green hair slipping past Dent, getting away once again out of his reach. Out of pure desperation, Bruce unconsciously resorts to force, his weight pushing against Harvey’s preppies that have begun to curse loudly in his face in response.

Harvey steps forward, and it doesn’t matter if they were friends a long time ago, Bruce hates him for this moment, the pale face long gone and out of his sight.

“Bloody shits up with you, Bruce Wayne.” Harvey drops, his voice low.

 

They used to be friends, back when Dent was still a debonair talk of the school, when the girls called him Apollo. Bruce had a genuine respect for the upstanding student, always fair and humble. That was before his fight with Maroni, where Dent got his face scarred for life and fell apart with everything.

It is strange, to be facing him again after such a long time apart, after all the things that happened. He looks very different from the Dent Bruce knew, angry, dark, a mess.

 

“You know him?” Bruce asks, frustrated. Harvey raises an eyebrow.

“The Clown? Why do you care, rich boy?”

“I need to talk to him.”

Bruce grits his teeth, when Harvey snorted at him as if that was the pettiest answer he could have ever gotten out of him.

“No one talks to the Joker unless you want someone mauled, Wayne. You have a score to settle, or someone ran off with your prom date?”

The unexpected answer takes Bruce back, slightly. It alarmed him somehow, how Harvey referred to the pale presence as something akin to a ravaging omen of doom.

“Doesn’t matter,” Dent continues, turning away with his chin poking the air. “If he’s not showing up to talk to you, you’re going to have better luck trying to find your baseball that crashed into Isely’s greenhouse.”

 

* * *

 

 

When Jonathan Crane broke his arm his perpetrator stood over him with a sneer on his face.

His name was David Mallory, he was good at terrorising the librarians under Falcone’s hand, and two weeks later he was found unconscious in the campus swimming pool, face duct taped, drowning to his death.

Everyone just thought he had a very bad drunk day, his lips all smothered in ruby red lipstick. But when he came to in the hospital, he never returned to Gotham High. Harvey’s words linger long and harsh inside Bruce’s head; _No one talks to the Joker unless you want someone mauled._ He flicks at the scroll bar, eyes still while his fingers click away at the screen.

There is no photo anywhere inside the school database, of the ‘Joker’.

Now, he remembers Crane during the Mallory fiasco, the ambulance arriving in front of the gates and attracting a crowd of students around the porch. He remembers now, that look Jonathan Crane had in his eyes, gazing down at Mallory’s stretcher. The gears inside his head start turning with a screech, piercing their way through Bruce Wayne’s memories.

Dent’s vengeance at Maroni, how Maroni’s gang split when his best right hand man betrayed him for an impossible reason, the last guy who called Quinzel a whore found half drugged to his demise, strapped inside his campus shower room, the day when people had to drag Ozzie’s boys out of a fire that exploded in their chemistry class…

 

Bruce massages his temples, shutting his eyes as he pushes himself away from the computer screen. The dim light from the monitor fades with an insignificant noise, having its power button pressed down.

 

* * *

 

 

It was unusual for Bruce Wayne to lose his cool.

He has been building his mask ever since the day he soaked his palms in his parent’s blood. He has been Bruce “ _Wayne_ ” for years, the handsome, arrogant playboy everyone expected him to be. He pretended to laugh, cry, be coy, be attractive, be ignorant – everything normal people needed to be – surrounded by damned little crooks in posh skin and elaborate titles, corporate sharks, snakes in suits.

Putting out his pent up anger on beating the daylight out of West End’s thugs under his black hooded windbreaker and muffle masks.

 

Then it was the day in school, where one little inconsiderate sentence marked a screw loose in his ego. One little snide green remark from the oblivious groupie he likes to pretend was his friend.

_Must be a wicked life Wayne. Parents kicking the bucket early, leaving you with mountains of cash, no burden, free to do whatever you want. You know, you should thank the guy who pulled the trigger._

The grip on the railing becomes harder at the words replaying in his thoughts, the rooftop breeze sifting through his hair and revealing a cold expression on his face.

 _Yes,_ Bruce was angry. That day, it was the first time in years, the moment the cracks gaped wide. He threw a can, down at the footpath, watching it burst and foaming on the ground and offering him minor comfort. It was better than punching the wall, but the third can he threw caused his scraped knuckles to split open and bleed a fountain all over his fingers.

 

He stood there, where he was standing now, panting, smelling his own blood, dripping down his fists and onto his shoes, the wind unable to cool his sweat.

Martha would have wanted him to forgive. But forgiveness only goes so far with some people who are more monstrous than others, poor excuses that don’t deserve sympathy for how they think, how they can hurt. His mind was distorting into something ugly.

 

That was when he heard the cackle – rich, scraping and diabolic.

Bruce whips his head around, eyes widening. The laughter wasn’t just a lingering phantom in his memories, it was there. There he stood, gazing into a pair of green eyes, intense and locked with his own blue ones.

“You.” Bruce calls out, and before he even realise, he was walking up to him so fast that they nearly collide.

He forgets every collective reason as they do collide, Bruce’s strong hands firm around the Joker’s collars and pushing him against the wall in a mere blink of an eye.

His back is crushed against the brick wall, and the pale face shows nothing of the impact having any grazes on him apart from a big wide smile. Bruce holds him too tight without being aware about it, too afraid of seeing the other disappear again. He was determined to make him stay, this time.

“You!”

“Miss me?”

The giggles are profoundly unstable, but the sheer joy in the voice makes the frustration built up in Bruce melt away in an instant. They stare at each other, for a few seconds, panting in an acoustic rhythm before Bruce loosens his grip without letting go.

 

“Why is it so damn hard to get to you?”

The bigger one admits through gritted teeth, muscles tensing and voice bitter. He wasn’t angry, no, but this was a feeling that he didn’t know how to accept. He didn’t want the emotion, it was overwhelming. Nearly three weeks on a wild goose chase, and the smiling face was, just there, here, under his grip. His heart beats, harder and louder.

“Brucie boy, you’re way out of context.” Joker grins. “I like you, a lot. I wasn’t avoiding you. I was getting out of your way, silly.”

He says it like it’s the most obvious answer to every single one of Bruce’s questions, and lands a playful punch on his shoulder’s that suddenly makes Wayne conscious of how close they were. In his confused state, Bruce manages to allow the other some breathing space.

“It was kind of hard to keep track on you, being shiny and popular and all that glittery things your _Animalia genus_ pain yourself with, but I’ve been busy myself too, so I suppose we’re even. _Comprends_?”

His very existence is surreal, and the mixed emotions are slurring Bruce from keeping up with his usual mask. Joker looked at him like he saw through his skin and bones. It makes it hard for Bruce to pretend, like he does with all the others.

“You’re not making any sense. You’ve been running away from me like I was a disease, and now -”

“In what context,” Joker cuts in, “does Bruce Wayne, Gotham’s poster boy, possibly have, to be talking intimately about his anger issues with the school freak?”

At first, Bruce doesn’t understand what his words mean. The abstract metaphor sounds too queer in his mind until they click at the implications. It felt like a hammer had just hit him in the back of his head. Joker notices the numb look, and pats his head, so subtly that Bruce loses his desire to move his head away.

“Oh you’re adorable. As much as I wanted to have a moment with you, Brucie, your masquerading is just too hilarious to break apart.”

Bruce feels all the energy being sapped out of his muscle. He lets the collar go, eyes staring deeply into the other’s own.

“I can keep up.” The billionaire croaks through his stiffening throat. Joker tilts his head, a knowing smile lingering on his lips. Bruce doesn’t completely let go, fingers brushing on the fabric of Joker’s jacket.

“With the pretending game?” His rogue giggles, when he nods.

“Just don’t -”

 

And he hesitates, only for a short second,

“- run away from me.”

 

* * *

 

 

The question that swallows him is a primeval one. The name.

It’s a name game with the Joker, he smiles like a cat that ate the canary when Bruce asks for his name. They stand back to back, in the quiet corner of the library, a shelf wedged between them. Bruce doesn’t pay attention to the random book on life philosophy that he pulled out from somewhere, waiting for an answer.

“You think a name matters?”

“I think it does.”

“Well, good luck convincing yourself that. To me, the name ‘ _Bruce Wayne_ ’ is more of an identification marker for your strange persona that likes to socialize with brainless idiots and wanting to look as harmless as a teddy bear.”

Bruce lets the other giggle, only mildly irritated at how precise the words hit him.

“What’s the true you? What do I call the real you? Does he even have a name under that dark gloomy hoodie and a half covered face?”

The book drops with a thud behind Joker, who expectantly waits until the rustling of the baseball jacket dies down to pick the book back up.

“How do you know that,” it was more of a personal stanza than a question, so the clown doesn’t answer.

“Beats me what people call me, they can name me whatever they like, because that’s how they remember me. So how will you remember me, Brucie? Anything that starts with a J will do. Jack, Joseph, Joe, Jay. I have all the names in the world.”

 

It is interesting and disturbing at the same time. Bruce doesn’t understand, and any normal people will think of it as the words of a madman. But somehow, it makes sense to him, like an imprint in his thoughts. He knows what the other means. His fingers flip a page over, eyes unfocused on the paper.

“I don’t want to call you with a meaningless name.” he admits, and the slight noise of breathing beside him cease almost instantly. “You said it yourself, Bruce Wayne’s not a name, and it’s identification for you. You don’t know what to call me either, because I haven’t told you a meaningful name that I have for myself.”

They both turn around at the same time, eyes meeting through the empty gap between the shelved books. As if they have promised this, a long time ago.

The feeling is like being pulled through the throat of a monster. It’s suffocating there, and if one of them dies of asphyxiation, it won’t matter because the vortex will crush the both of them anyway.

 

Bruce feels his heart race. A strange burden lifting which he didn’t even know was there.

“I’ll wait for you.” He whispers. “I’ll wait for your name, and then I’ll tell you mine.”

 

It’s a glorious silence. The damp gloom in the blue hue fails to nibble away at their separate world. It’s a dance, and Joker extends his hand through the gap. He smiles like the devil, teeth bearing, fangs flashing.

 

“ _Joker_. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

 

Bruce grins with him, unable to stop himself. It was the first smile he cracked since the night in the alley, and it feels good, his lips genuinely stretching.

“ _Bruce Wayne_.” He answers, shaking Joker’s hands. “Nice to meet you.”

 

 

And they break into a hysterical fit of laughter. Bruce Wayne was laughing.

 

He was laughing, laughing, and laughing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Cracking on mustard cakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You need to sort out the crazy things that go on inside your head.

 

 

 

 

Rain pours like someone tipped a bucket over Gotham.

It’s cold and harsh, sky scrapers towering over the fog like castles in the clouds. Joker doesn’t seem to mind standing in the cold, his green hair already drenched with water. He looks ghastly in the grim rain, arms curled around his hips, slowly squatting down next to a broken flower pot.

 

Bruce was already cutting across the grass towards the ball of green and purple, deaf to the groupies calling behind his back asking him where he was going. He stops abruptly as Harvey Dent appears from the corner, reaching there faster than him.

From his distance, Bruce can’t hear the conversation, but Harvey has his umbrella over the soaked figure like it was a casual thing for him to do. Bruce doesn’t know why he stopped. He can feel his soles sagging above the grass. That ugly feeling is back again, spreading through his body.

He stays there, looming over in the rain until he sees Harvey throw his umbrella at Joker. The rain fails to smother the sound of that hollow laughter.

 

* * *

 

 

“That guy, with the bleached perm and crutches? He’s fall-over-heels in love with that little minx over there.”

 

They look towards the direction pointed out by a pale finger, and it lands on someone familiar to Bruce. He tilts his head behind the magazine, recognizing the faces.

“I know them both. She despises him because she thinks he’s a creep.”

“Why yes, actually, the guy paid me to break her fingers once.”

It alarms Bruce, how much Joker seems incapable of moral direction, and also how he seems overly okay with this fact about the other. To be honest, it doesn’t feel like malice. No, in Joker’s perspective, his actions are beyond the curve of normality. He has his own peculiar world where nothing remained only black and white. For Bruce, it explained things, made it easier to see that Joker’s catastrophic dementia and disregard for the value of life forms was literally pure in a terrible way.

His self-righteousness has no opinion when he enters the Joker’s world, and its lifting him from the murky swamp of responsibility and virtues. It’s a refreshing feeling, a dirty pleasure Wayne won’t admit to.

 

“See, people are funny,” the pale face breaks into an easy smile, leaning into Bruce’s face to whisper behind their shared magazine. “He hasn’t the guts to ask her out, because he reckons that he’s _too cool-io_ for a ghetto girl. But he still wants to get with her, so that is why he sold me his card, fattened my appetite, just to get her fingers broken so he can take her to the infirmary and do her.”

Bruce takes a second, long hard look at the upperclassman across the hall under his hooded shirt, his eyes turning steel blue.

“What happened to her?”

“Eh, well,” Joker snorted, barely keeping it together from bursting into a bubble of laughter. “She’s a ghetto girl Brucie, total sweet cheeks when it comes to playing the rough housing, and she’s a better player.”

“She fought with him?”

It was difficult to imagine a tiny little girl with ponytails and freckles going against a full egotistical jock from the football team. She had teeth, if that was what Joker was implying.

 

“No. Our little plum over there out-bought me to push him off the stairs.”

And Joker can’t keep himself from cackling madly away, drawing a few eyes to him. It’s hilarious to him, and he bangs on the table like a fanfare. The weird little secret, for Bruce Wayne was that it was actually funny. By the time he knew what his lips were doing, they were pulling back into a smile, and Bruce can’t stop himself from laughing along with Joker.

 

“So that’s why Wesley Eastfield got on his crutches. I just thought he was finally compensating for the bad foot work he had on the tracks.” Bruce manages, between his chunky sounds of laughter.

Joker lets his giggles die down, giving Bruce a soft pat on his tufts of jet black hair before leaning away out of his personal space. The citrine scent lingers even as he leaves the area, and Bruce’s subconscious thinks of it as a pleasant enough thing to miss it.

In the short days that followed, this was what they did. In the days and time both had to spare in a moment accompanied by the other, away from the others, Bruce with his face under the hood.

Joker invites him to see his world, where he watches every single individual pass in his eyes. He sees them move, talk, think and feel. It’s uncanny how much attention Joker pays to the mannerisms, to the details the people around him possess, and it challenges Bruce to think that it’s possible Joker knows more about the people he watches than they know themselves.

They share the little whispers and thoughts, things Bruce would have never admitted or talk about to others except, or even to Alfred. Their views are the polar opposites of each other, and yet seem closer than anything else that would be similar. Their opinions are battles, but it’s also a dance.

By now, Bruce sees why the likes of Harvey Dent like to hear the Joker’s council, because he hears everything, and he sees everything the others would be interested to get their ears and eyes on.

All chaos needs is a little whispers there, little pinches here. Bruce understands now, Selina called the clown a _manipulative little shit_. It was true. This also reminds him of the other curiosities,

“I never see you in class.” Bruce puzzles, picking up the magazines and stuffing them into his bag. “Although I’m pretty sure you’re in my year.”

“Darling, I actually am. I’m flattered that you knew that.”

 

The musing doesn’t answer the question, but Bruce is patient. They scuttle quietly out of the student lounge, past the gym and away from the first wave of students returning into their respective classes. Most of them don’t recognize Bruce hiding away in his plain black hoodie and jeans, and the two are free to roam in private for a short while before the halls are locked.

“I suppose giving Jensen, my old chum, a headache with me vexing charm all through his social communications lecture is a flamboyantly entertaining idea, but it’s too tedious. Anyway, I don’t think most of the teachies like seeing me under the same ceiling with them.”

Bruce shrugs. He figures Joker as an intelligent person. He scribbled random things on Bruce’s science papers when he was bored during morning recess, and later when Bruce mindlessly read it down, he had to check twice on his answering sheet because most of the aggressive writing got everything clean and correct.

“I reckon they’re allergic to my ingenuity.” Joker whispers playfully, before turning a shade cheekier and bouncing away off into the corners.

“Maybe that or they’re tired of hearing you laugh over Monty Python.”

Bruce watches the leaner frame glide away with a snicker playing at his lips after the remark, the graceful movement taking Joker slowly out of his sight.

 

“Catch you later, Brucie dearie,” Joker sings, flying a wave at him. “And don’t miss me too much.”

 

For a reason unknown to Bruce, he can’t say he won’t.

 

* * *

 

 

Harley still doesn’t really like him. Understandably, she has her valid reasons to why she doesn’t like him very much. It’s in plain sight that she’s wary of Bruce sitting beside Joker, and the first time the three meet in one place, she nearly screeches.

 _But Puddin’,_ she wailed, in a distinctive high pitched southern accent, _he’s the goddamn Wayne boy._

“Trust me, I won’t be trouble.” Bruce offers, and is met with a vicious glare from the blonde girl. The alarm there almost makes him flinch.

“First rule, B-man, stay out of the conversation.”

It’s absurd, but she means it. Honestly it would have been fascinating if not for Harley looking like she wanted to plunge a knife down his throat.

 

“Don’t mind our Harley, she just takes loyalty very seriously, you see.” Joker pops in, his fingers pinching at the girl’s cheeks until they go bright red. “It’s no wonder you lack company other than myself, I keep telling Pam she needs to teach you how to socialize, sweetheart.”

“But Pam’s more fucked with people than I am.”

The sight was comical enough for Bruce to let his guard down, slightly more than when they first all assembled in the same place. It’s Friday afternoon, and they were sitting inside the empty art classroom watching Joker work his magic on the paper _mâché,_ Bruce contemplates only a little when he finds himself helping with the paper starch.

“Word of advice, my dear little abomination, Pam has fewer friends than an unborn porcupine, but she knows how to socialize according to communal standards.”

He had a point there, Bruce silently agrees. At the least their unfriendly greenhouse lollygagger was collected enough to show decorum around people. Comparing her social skills to Harley was harder, because the blonde girl was already infamous for taking a bite out of one of the cheerleaders’ ears when they made fun of her pigtails.

 

Joker drives a thin coil through his paper model, fingers nimble on the work that he seems only half focused on. Harley huffs, chin resting on her lazy arms.

“You’re the one to talk puddin’.” She mutters, eyes averting the green gaze. “I’ve heard Sionis and his thugs looking for you over the wall.”

The name flicks a switch in Bruce Wayne’s head, and his neck goes stiff at the mention of Roman. “Why?” he asks, slowly turning to meet the blinking green eyes.

“Hmm, maybe it’s because I helped Harvey blow up his motorcycle at Maroni’s party last week. Who knows? Sionis needs to smile more often and learn how to take a joke. The guy has no sense of humour.” Joker takes a jab at Bruce, despite seeing his expression frozen in all seriousness. “A little like you, actually.”

The young thug was the son of Gotham’s largest Mafioso, and the name didn’t ring a healthy bell in Bruce Wayne’s head. He knows the boy, met his family in the socialite gatherings every time the occasion arose. Not the greatest of personalities to get acquainted with, their entire family was born ready crooks.

 

Joker seems oblivious to the fact that there are Sionis’ lackeys out there hunting him for a week old grudge, and cheerfully finishes up his work. Bruce is torn between mixed senses of irritation at his carefree demeanour, and when he brings it up by the door they turn to leave through, Joker presses a finger against his forehead and taps it like he would scorn his pet kitten.

“Tah, tah, Brucie. I don’t ask questions about your delightful acting career, because I adore you enough to trust that you know what you’re doing.”

It builds a strange frustration in Bruce, because although he’s not entirely sure what the emotion was, he honestly did not trust his pale faced _compagnon_ to care for himself. Personal safety only seemed to matter so little to Joker, the notion cracks through Bruce’s mind in the form of something misshapen and nasty.

“Just…” Bruce starts after Joker’s back, giving up. “Watch where you’re going, alright?”

He only offers him a devilish smirk before leaving the empty corridor.

The three are met with the sun going down, the school long vacated and quiet. It’s Friday, the anticipation of the weekends leave a barren building behind.

 

Bruce lets his thoughts wander to the slighter male walking beside him, after bidding Harley a friendly goodbye when she takes the last bus to her home. They follow each other to the student car park, and it leaves Bruce wondering if Joker drives.

“I lost my licence.” he answers with an anxious giggle.

“How did that happen?”

“Well, I crashed into a truck, long story. And it wasn’t my car, you get the picture.”

Yes, Bruce somehow gets the picture. He doesn’t ask whose car it was.

The black Lamborghini sits in the parking lot, a few walks away from where the two of them were standing. Bruce tries to sound as natural as he can, when he finally manages to ask after a moment of pondering, “You have a ride home?”

His throat tingles despite Joker cracking a smile at him. The pale faced mystery makes a dramatic turn, gesture more theatrical when he points at the car Bruce didn’t know was heading their way.

“Here comes my ride.”

To his complete unready surprise, Joker steps forward onto the driveway as he sings his answer away.

 

For a split second moment, Bruce reaches out in full reflex, unsure if the car will stop in time to not run over the scrawny pale hide. The driver of the car seems more startled than Bruce is, he can tell by the sudden screech of the brakes. The tyres snag the road surface, and halts just in time in front of Joker’s knees.

A sharp roar of the car horn bellows so loudly that they can see the pebbles on the footpath rattle. It makes a point about how the driver was feeling, and Bruce wasn’t expecting Harvey Dent when the windows were winded down furiously.

The scarring on his cheeks doesn’t make him any less intimidating to look at, and the only person out of the three that didn’t seem fazed was the green ball of crazies.

Harvey looks just about to start barking _listen-here-you-little-shit_ , his finger pointing at the red lipped smile.

“Harv! Nice of you to drop by.”

“One day, I’m going to run over your broken bones, my gears at two.”

Bruce shifts uncomfortably through the exchange, fingers pressing into this car keys. His lips are already apart, and he interjects before anyone can say otherwise.

“I can give you a lift.” _Considering,_ he thinks, _Dent looks practically unwelcoming._

Both antagonists whip their heads around at the bland offer, a deadpan Harvey staring right at Bruce’s face.

“What’s he doing here?” The unscarred eye narrow into something hostile, the ocean blue refuses to part for them.

“That’s the nicest thing someone said to me in a month.” Joker replies to Bruce.

“What the hell is he doing here?” Harvey stubbornly persists, getting past the fact that he was ignored.

“If he’s bothered, I’ll give you a lift.”

“Oh, don’t feed our two faced moron here, he’s a harmless troll.”

“Shut up.”

“Besides Brucie, your offer is tempting,” Joker muses, dismissing a fuming Harvey. “But my neighbourhood doesn’t have high regards for posh little limited edition Lambos, so if you want to keep your bumper, side mirrors and wallet, I’d recommend you some other time. ‘Kay? Sweetie pie?”

He makes it sound extra sweet, and Harvey is left with muttering something gruff and mocking under his breath. Bruce doesn’t care enough to pay attention to what he said; he was busy stomping on the tinge of disappointment crawling up his spine.

 

Wayne half expected Harvey to kick Joker out of his car, but the angry driver doesn’t say anything when the clown helps himself to the seat beside him. Harvey jerks his agitated fist on the side brakes, says nothing as he moves away from Bruce’s gaze and pulls away his ride.

It’s impromptu, and the broad shouldered youth feels his fingers curling inwards into his palms, firm on the keys. His head feels cold. Joker waves him an energetic goodbye, poking his head out of the window before Harvey winds them up without a warning. He watches the flailing figure curse his insults in the air, stuck in the window as they drive away, leaving Bruce to slam his door shut a little harder than he needed to.

 

* * *

 

 

A few times, Bruce understands why he accepts.

 _You’re dysfunctional._ He concludes, blinking away at the other’s blood blotched on his shirt.

 _I’d prefer the term…_ Joker hesitates, slithering away from his victim. _Functioning differently._

He wipes away the blood from his chin with the back of his hand. The stark contrast of the colour seems almost macabre in Bruce’s eyes.

The nameless body stirs in the corner, foaming at his mouth, a badly punctured needle wound on his neck. His blood puddles on the filthy floor, Bruce silently makes his way through the mess and picks the body up on his back, slinging it on his shoulders without difficulty.

_I’ll take him to the infirmary._

It was a statement, not an offer. And Wayne sees the hypocrisy, how it reflects hysterically in the eyes of his opposite column.

 _See, Bruce?_ Joker lowers his voice, forcing him to look back.

 

_This is what draws me to you._

 

He doesn’t say anything.

It was the truth.

 

* * *

 

 

Joker is cruel when he wants to be. It shows in his subtle snarls and eloquent hisses. He can let things be a joke, and he can let things become a blood sport. His unpredictability flashes like a poisoned fang in his smiles.

It affected Bruce in a way that he imagined nothing would. When the clock strikes midnight and the weekend nightfall drapes a cover over Gotham, Bruce sneaks out of the manor under his hood. He has a vague feeling Alfred knows about his strolls, but if he did, his old man respects his choices and says nothing of it.

His ears fall deaf among the screams inside the Saturday night fight club, against the gritty cries of crooks and beggars. He sits panting and tired when the wager bell hits, knuckles bleeding and an eye bruising.

All the muscles on his body tense, cringing at the strain of violence. The police siren hits the shutters and it cues his dismissal when the crowd goes wild with disarray.

It’s easy to ride the wave of thugs and sneak out of the sweat drenched place, greeted by the quiet alleyways of downtown Gotham. Bruce licks his dried lips, tongue poking out of the flesh wound. It was going to scab, and Alfred was going to give him a look. But it would disappear by Monday, at least, he hoped, looking down at his messy hands.

They’re hot and slippery now. The pumping in his veins making feel, _alive_ , and realising what a hypocrite he was. The need to feel alive, he needs it.

 

_You want to hurt something._

 

The sensation of – spitting everything out – spilling into a sickness.

And the other part of him, firm and justified, stubbornly saying _no_. There are other ways to protect and let out. In Bruce Wayne’s mind, everything becomes scattered. He broods on his own voices, all the regrets he has locked up inside his maze of a mind.

 

_Jonathan Crane never specified who let Mallory drown._

 

Bruce began to sprint, heels kicking at the empty pavement. He ran, all the way to the docks, breathing hard.

 

_Joker is cruel when he wants to be._

 

His spectrum bursts with colour, and it affects Bruce like nothing else should. Like an inflating balloon, an anticipation. A polar opposite. A sense of freedom through someone who lives in a world without moral dictation. A mirror image.

 

A dangerous obsession grows.

 

 

 

 

 


	3. All the blood and gore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bleeding helps sometimes, you know.

 

 

 

By now, Bruce has to get used to Joker’s oddballs flinching in his presence. There are only a few quirky identities Joker ever bothers to interact with, and all of them aren’t used to seeing Bruce Wayne around in their close vicinity outside sports festivals and his duty roster at the Gotham High student council committee.

“Relax. Our big hunky honker here is with me.” Joker assures, shoulders bunched over and tense as he fiddles with something in his hands.

Nigma doesn’t say anything, merely responding by shrugging as he returns to study the useless information on the A/C manual booklet. Wayne recognizes the guy in his green shirt and rimmed glasses, looking dandy and neat on the chair. Edward Nigma from the school broadcasting crew, he was always live on air at Thursday channels, and the last person Bruce would have ever thought Joker would be getting cell phone instructions from.

 

“Been saving up for this little beauty,” the pale fingers lift up the battery assembled phone, “ever since my last phone cracked up and died when spandex Dorrance punctured a hole in the cafeteria roof with it.”

“Riddle me this,”

Joker cuts Eddie off faster than he can say ‘what is’.

“I know it lacks a SIM card you dolt.”

“Correct.”

“No matter, I’ll drop by the Gotham Square with Harley later today.”

The pure absurdity of the two unlikely combinations almost distract Bruce enough, until he finds a brand new phone being pushed up in front of his face. He looks at the metallic device, asking a silent question while Joker tilts his head expectantly.

“Well? Your number beef chops, don’t tell me you don’t have a phone.”

 _Oh._ The jock fiddles with the umber pad, almost forgetting he actually had a phone. His private number was only known to a few, Alfred, he wasn’t sure if old man Jim knew it but his daughter sure did. Richard was still a little too young to care about the stuff.

Joker looks satisfied with the number and doesn’t attempt to try and check if it works. He turns the phone off after he punches ‘Darling’ on the blank name space.

“Hey, what about my number?” Eddie protests giving Bruce a spurt of guilty, twisted satisfaction, until Joker rolls his eyes at the question marked oddity,

“Eddie, I already know your number, and it’s the only one that’s arranged in an abysmal PI sequence, gods fuck you.”

“Oh so you figured it out.”

“It’s obvious, anyway, been nice smellin’ you, chaps. I’ve got places to go, money to earn, people to harass.”

He makes no effort to control the noises when packing up the things sprawled across the table, and when the clock hand strikes exactly twelve, exits by jumping out the window. Bruce learns to adapt to this way of showing up and going away.

 

“So,” Edward drawls, peering below the windowsill. “How much did you pay him?”

The question lands a sudden blow, it makes the jock standing across him furrow his brows. Bruce looks at Nigma, confused.

“What?”

The brunette tips his shoulders, as if hinting he should know what he was talking about. He turns to meet him in the eye, there’s a curious spark in his pupils. Something that was too neutral in the way he saw him.

“The likes of you, Bruce Wayne, are always the birds of the same feather. How much did you pay him to do your dirty job?”

The words sink in, harder than they would intend to mean. Bruce nearly bristles, his fists curling.

 

“I hope it’s not a runaway prom date.” Eddie adds.

“What? No, no.”

He has no idea why the question infuriates him so much, but tries to push it down in his control. Half of him feels the exploding urge to punch the smug expression off Nigma’s face.

“I’m not…” he pauses, unable to justify what he was. “That.”

“That’s convincing.”

“Don’t accuse me.”

Bruce doesn’t back away. Backing away was worse than forfeit. They stare at each other for another breathless minute, contemplating the sharpness in their edged gazes, before Nigma gives in with a sigh.

“I see why he’s so fascinated with you.”

 

* * *

 

 

Interacting didn’t need to seem so uncanny, but it turns unique when it becomes associated with the puckish little fiend Bruce has found himself accompanying.

Joker has very little time for extorting his few contacts that he bothers to keep in touch with, and the moments are so whimsical that most of the time they seem too meaningless. The rogues get used to Wayne’s presence by the third week, and he notices Harley warming up to him enough to stop growling in his face.

It’s not necessarily a good thing, because her potato level social skills determine her eccentric personality in another level of cumbersome. She doesn’t seem to mind Bruce’s incapability to keep up with her energy, as long as he’s not standing or sitting too close to her only friend J, besides Pam.

Bruce never asked if Joker actually considered her as a friend, because that would probably make himself question his own position in their strange companionship – and frankly didn’t feel that he was ready to face up to the answers, yet.

Ultimately it’s a strained relationship, because Bruce is still stuck in his frame of being the golden Wayne boy and levelling in his own plane of groupies that are always making snide jokes about the looneys of Gotham High.

Sometimes, Bruce Wayne passes by the pale face and green eyes amongst the herd. They catch each other in their eyes across the halls, and Bruce is suddenly self-aware of the wide black varsity jacket that hangs on his shoulders. It marks him, with the same tag the burly posh pricks are marked with, walking at his flank.

He doesn’t turn over his shoulder, and knows Joker will not turn for him either even when they pass beyond each other without a single hint of recognition. Neither of them will even spare a second glance, or a blink.

 _“Freak shows in town_.” One of the blonde bulk snickers beside him, pointing at the clown. Bruce pretends to be amused, a corner of his lips pulled tight.

It’s their routine.

No one will outwardly insult the Joker, his reputation exceeds his looks. But it doesn’t stop the big shots taking a bite out of him just like all the other creeps and crooks the privileged makes fun of just to sound cool. And if he heard, he surely doesn’t give a single damn fuck, and Bruce can’t help but smile at how confidently Joker presents them his bird, munching on an apple as he disappears down the stairs.

 

“Still hanging around time wasting idiots, it says something about you.”

Dent’s muttering catches Bruce off guard.

It’s the first direct words that he voluntarily let out to communicate with him since their last goodbyes a year ago. The lack of sunlight out in the porch drives most of the students into warmer places, leaving the two young men isolated outside. There’s no mistake when he finds Harvey Dent was talking to him.

Bruce chooses his words carefully, before answering. “It does.” He nods, “yes.”

It’s a funny answer, with no definite acknowledgement of what Dent was actually pointing at him for. He knows this, and draws back his lips in a distasteful growl. It soon changes into a sneer, his scarred face muscles tensing.

 

“I’m wasting my words with you.” Dent gives. “Stick to your golden boys and normal people Wayne, his world isn’t suitable for the likes of you, righteous assholes.”

It’s another whole lot of unwanted tension when Bruce automatically understands what he was talking about. He feels a molar tearing down at his patience. A few breaths settle him down, before opening his mouth again.

“My choice Harvey, just like you made yours.”

“Cut the crap. Stop popping out of places with the clown, there’s only one of two reasons anyone even talks to that psychopath.” Harvey draws back, eyes already turning away. “Either you’re as insane as he is, or you want to exploit him.”

There is a weird little jab in the edges of his voice, like Harvey doesn’t want to even explain this in a definitive manner. The notion is eerie, and the blue eyes sit firmly in their places without faltering away.

 

“Which one are you?”

 

Harvey turns around. He walks away.

“Both of them.”

 

* * *

 

 

Harvey Dent’s words are engraving themselves into his memory, and it wasn’t healthy.

The last thing they were, were a burden, another scathe in his vent up anger with no outlet. It stays with Bruce for the whole of Friday, and the young Wayne spends the entire day brooding in his basement. Alfred doesn’t comment on the lack of girls on his Friday, and neither on his empty schedule.

It is midnight on a fresh Saturday when he finally picks himself up off the bed, feeling numb. He reaches for the black muffle mask sitting on his desk. Bruce peers at himself reflected in the mirror for a few blinks, before covering his face and pulling on his windbreaker, hood down.

Either the Gotham police are struggling to keep track of all the illegal activities going on in downtown, or they’re deaf to a point of being oblivious to the raging screams of underground pit fighters that can be heard miles away, otherwise they would have found the club a long time ago.

The last bust in didn’t do much to let the crowd drop, and Bruce is greeted with the horrible dubstep as he steps inside backstage panel.

Whoever it was that was slaying on the stage was killing it, because the savage was making the speakers boom with his nasty streak of rage. The bookies, who bet high money on him are going crazy all over the place, Bruce steals a glance through the curtain call and out in the big stage where he catches a glimpse of the biggest damn man he’s ever seen, throwing a poor bastard off the ring with one arm.

“Hey man, this round is being cleaned up, survival match starts next panel. Take the entrance on your right.”

The ceremonies master recognizes him, or at least his masked getup, and pats his back towards the outward entrance. The game masters are becoming interested in him ever since he started showing up last month and took down their end match champion, and nobody suspects an underage Bruce Wayne under the mask.

 

_-And tonight’s solo highlight goes to Solomon Gru-ndy!_

 

Bellows get louder with each and every step he takes towards the bigger ring, the announcer’s voice bursting through the roof at his mic. Bruce pushes past the loan sharks and gamblers near the pool table, stretching his knuckles. There’s a sense of excitement in the air, it was always the same bloodlust, and it’s almost suffocating.

It’s a gruff business when the ticket charmers scoot over. The commotion makes Bruce turn his head around to get another look at the big white haired man he saw on the stage, returning to the booth. The guy looks practically dangerous and stale as he stomps his way back. Something seems oddly off about the crowd. Bruce can’t tear his eyes away even as he joins the next group of crooks being escalated down the arena.

Just as he levels down, Bruce catches a strangely familiar tuft of emerald green.

He almost slams his hand down the emergency lever.

 

It might be an illusion. It might be, Bruce hurries his view upwards, and he could have sworn he saw a pale face there among the crowd, smudged red lips, purple bomber jacket, and furious green hair standing next to Solomon Grundy with a wide open grin. It’s not an illusion.

Bruce is distracted. The bell rings soundless, and the opening announcement clearly shooting out of his head before someone lands a punch on his face. The young fighter staggers back, mind fuzzy and screeching a dash bell noise. It’s all hell from there. Something else takes over his body in the instance he shuts all the reason down from his persona and violently strikes away.

His alter ego stands on the scarlet red apex. There’s no stopping until the howling noise return, when he finds he can start hearing the sounds around him again. The gritty crowd cheering on the spectacle, Bruce standing over a wounded head with his fists trembling in blood, everything spirals down in a deep sense of volatile energy as the games master announces his image standing over twitching broken bodies.

 

Bruce breathes. Sharp breaths. Inhale, exhale, a slow rhythm.

 

He can’t see anything else besides that pale face upon the balcony, sharp green eyes narrowing into seagulls, smiling like a Cheshire cat greeting a lost Alice into his grim little wonderland.

 

* * *

 

 

Joker’s not picking up the call. The third connection gets cut off as the AI operator guides him through how the voicemail works. Bruce spits out his ball of blood into the corner of the street, eyes darting away from the failed call message and letting the cops pass behind the concrete walls.

He didn’t see the other get out of the building at all when the SWAT team crashed the gates. Bruce isn’t looking for another friendly man to man chat with Gordon, trying to explain his awkward placement in an awkward situation. So he smooth tapped out the upper stage windows during the chaos, not managing to catch the pale faced maniac out in the one way path leading to the waterfront where all the other lottery betters made their escape.

Passing by the police cars and through the siren noises, Bruce assumes Joker probably got himself out. He dislocates the mask away from his mouth and pulls his hood off before stepping out into the sidewalk, keeping to the left side of the road.

His arms are stinging, his face was bruised, and he was probably limping, but the police wouldn’t possibly accuse a teenager strolling around the docks for just being there. They usually don’t.

_“Found one out near Hollies depot, Wes, you’re needed here. I think this one’s underage.”_

Bruce whips around, looking over his shoulder at the two officers with the radio receiver. The ominous feeling creeps up his fazed head, unwanted, but making him wary all the same. The two cops don’t notice him following them all the way down near the warehouse, where the first thing Bruce notices is the potent smell of blood.

His heart skips a beat, feet already stepping forward and alarming a group of uniformed officers into his direction.

“It’s a kid, lower your guns.” The one with the radio signal motion to the others, eyeing him tiredly. She’s a middle aged woman, hair cropped short and stocky built. A few others are squatting down with her next to a crumpled pale heap sitting up by the wall, his jutting shoulders twitching in pain.

Bruce recognizes him, he sprints, the sound of his bolting feet grabbing the attention of a pair of green eyes that light up with a spark.

 _Hey, hey, hey, Sweetie pie! Is that you I see gallantly running towards me?_ The green haired rogue cackles away at the damp air, startling the ones standing next to his body. Bruce gets his fair share of anxious tingles when he notices the lanky arms reaching out to him.

 

“Stop, young man, that’s as far as you can get.”

The woman warns him with a firm frown. Bruce nearly ignores her until the others stand in his way, blocking him off.

“He’s with me.” Bruce answers in a stiff voice, when he feels his body being gently held back.

“Tell’em cupcakes, I’m with him officers, see?”

Joker looks like a pile of mess. He knows it when someone holds onto their arms like they’re broken, all the blood seeping through his nose doesn’t make the blackening eye look any better on the deathly complexion. Bruce feels a cog in his guts churn at the sight.

“What the hell happened to him?”

“Shit, you’re the Wayne boy. What are you doing here, laddie?”

Bruce grimaces. He thinks twice about repeating his question, before Joker’s hazy coughing distracts everyone.

“What’s his name? He’s not giving us the details, and we need it.” She demands, and Bruce is left pausing in silence.

 

“It’s…”

“Joseph.” Joker interjects, smiling up at the female officer. “Call me Joe, pleased to meet you.”

She cocks an eyebrow down at him, and takes a moment before standing up straight. Her eyes dart between the famous young heir to the Wayne Empire and the green haired fiend with a nasty red smile on his lips.

 

“Alright boys, we’re moving the party back to GCPD. You’re both coming, and you’re going to say nothing until we get there. Wes, get them in the car.”

 

“On second thoughts,” Joker giggles, his voice quieter when he whispers at Bruce. “I think I should’ve said Jack. I liked that name, don’t you?”

Bruce sighs.

 

* * *

 

 

Alfred obliges when Bruce assures him he can carry their guest alone. The old butler takes forward from the car to hold the main gates open, while Bruce shifts the weight onto his back and carry in a twitchy Joker into the atrium.

None of them says anything until Alfred offers to fetch the first aid kit.

“I’ll proceed to get you some water, Master Bruce. Any preferences from our guest?”

“Juice?” replied Bruce, unable to sound focused.

“Juice.” Joker agrees.

“Juice it is then.”

The exhaustion is taking a good measure out of Wayne. Stepping back inside his sanctum in the dead of night always seems to take its toll. But walking up the stairs and halls with Joker on his back doesn’t sap him out, much to the fact that he doesn’t weigh a damn thing. Bruce isn’t sure if he should be worried about this.

Joker shifts his neck around a lot while they make their way up to the third floor, a feverish purr releasing between his lips. The clown’s breath touches the skin on the back of Bruce’s neck, and it nails something hard and warm in his stomach.

 

“Brucie boy, this place of yours is mind blowing,” Joker laughs, and suddenly turns dead serious. “It really is. It’s blowing my mind. Your wall papers are too dull.”

The young master of the house unintentionally snorts out loud.

“Burgundy is a good enough interior colour choice.”

Joker laughs again, his seriousness all gone. “Only when you’re planning to murder some poor chap in your house.”

“Flashy colours aren’t my thing.”

“What? Bruce Wayne? Not a fan of bright colours? Gee, I’m scandalized, I thought you loved them, just look at how much colour you usually wear, your meatiness.”

Bruce cracks a smile, despite the rollercoaster he had been through all Saturday night. It makes Joker’s face light up like tinder, a glow in his eyes.

 

The drive down to the police department was uneventful, although the few cops driving in with them briefly took to staring at the bizarre duo. Bruce had other things to mind, like wondering how in the world Joker managed to get this much beaten up, it definitely wasn’t the police.

Joker didn’t give any straight answers, and by the time Alfred was summoned to the station, he had to listen to Gordon’s monologue about being in the appropriate company before being allowed to take Joker out of the juvenile holding cell.

They arrive in front of a well carved antique door, which Bruce pushes past with his feet. The bedroom is devoid of much warmth, and feels too empty most of the time ever since the Wayne tragedy, but it was his. It’s his sanctuary, and he didn’t even come to be aware that no one but Alfred has been in this part of the manor for a very, very long time. The thought sends an agitation in Bruce’s mind, but he quickly moves away from them as he attempts to be gentle when putting down Joker on the bed.

The clown rolls away on the featherbed, groaning on his back then turning onto his side. The police managed to reattach his broken arm, but the purple and blue appearing viciously down his skin was a sore sight to look at underneath the sleeves.

Bruce is staring at the dangling white wrists. He doesn’t realise he was staring until he finds himself jumping at the soft crusted breath escaping through the scratched and dried lips. Joker lies curled up in the silence, his back to Bruce.

It’s, fixating. His pale thin neck out reflected under the weak light seeping through the blinds, tinted maroon with dry crusted blood, flashing intimately between the loose collars of his jacket. Bruce can see where his spine starts, between the bared gaps under his amber shirt. He sees his protruding wrist bones sticking out from where his hands meet his arm. He sees the ankles tucked underneath his body, where his black jeans end, slim thighs, long toes.

 

He looks so breakable.

 

_Let me fall. You know you want to._

 

Bruce snaps up, finding Alfred halting at his alarmed gaze.

 

“Is something wrong, sir?”

Yes, something was definitely wrong with him. Bruce internally thanks the butler for barging into the moment. Joker shifts to roll back and flash the butler with a grin, eyes locking at the cup of juice on his tray. _There’s our Jeeves._ The clown jokes, sitting up.

“No, nothing’s wrong,” denies Bruce. “Come here, we’re patching you up.”

Joker reluctantly parts with his bomber, looking sour at the bloody patches on the fabric. Alfred offers to put it in the laundry, implying that he somehow was sure Joker was staying the night. The thought didn’t occur to Bruce, who unconsciously turned to his pale faced guest to gain his approval. Joker shrugs. “Do I get this bed?”

He doesn’t mind Bruce not answering, taking the cup down while the young Wayne finishes bandaging up his arm. Alfred roams silently around the room, taking Bruce’s bloody windbreaker from the hanger, seemingly unaffected by the strange conversation being exchanged.

“What happened?”

“I think everything happened well, judging by circumstances, of course.” Joker sings, earning himself a particularly ill aimed swab at his sliced flesh. If it hurt, he doesn’t show it.

“I’m not asking that.”

“Questions, questions, sweetheart, you always have so much. You know sometimes, I think your _too-many-questions-syndrome_ is the cause of your tendency to brood so much on pointless things- ow, gentle.”

Bruce hates the look on Alfred’s face, like the butler relates and agrees. He motions him to drop it, and the classy old retainer excuses himself out of the room with possibly one of the most deadpan face Bruce has ever seen him make.

 

“The hell you were doing in a place like that?”

“You don’t see me asking you that, darling. Besides, I’ve been there longer on the cash curve than you in the dirty pit, B-man. How else do you think I knew about your delicious little secret?” Joker purrs, face leaning in and almost whispering as if it was a precious secret of his.

“You were betting?” Bruce retorts, half incredulous.

“It’s a sport, Brucie. I don’t always put the money on the table, tonight was a little special, but that’s a bedtime story for another night. So how about we call it a day and discuss what a cute adorable life saver you are.”

Sometimes it’s easier to accept and let things do. With the fatigue getting the better of him, Bruce doesn’t grant the other a satisfaction of starting that discussion. Instead, he resolves to press his ointment dipped finger as hard as he can onto Joker’s lips. His pale faced enigma squirms on the bed, hands clutching at his stinging gums.

 

The clock wasn’t planning to wait for the two to finish up, time was a bastard when Bruce noticed the reason why he could be feeling so drained. The clock hand was reaching six. There is no wonder why the light fading through the blinds were so bright, the sun was coming up.

He leaves the medical kit sprawled on the floor somewhere, eyes blinking up at the ceiling. He’s too tired to think, and too restless to drop.

There is a crisp noise in the air, and it smells like blood, grape fruit, and coffee.

 

Joker looks up at him, arms hugging his knees. The emerald greens are eerie in the morning blue hue, digging away at the colourless bland cold. Bruce stares down, his lids heavy over the ocean blue.

 

“I saw you bite, you hypocrite.”

The clown whispers, the blood crusted corners of his lips grinning melancholy.

“I saw the blood on your hands, Bruce Wayne.”

 

Bruce doesn’t answer. He shifts a bit, before giving up and toppling down onto his bed, eye to eye beside his pale adversary. They stare, at each other, until the blue smothers the ill painted room, submerging into the morning glacier.

 

 

_Are you still waiting for my name?_

 

The voice sinks. Low, low, low. Into the bowels of his slumbering alter-ego.

Bruce closes his eyes.

 

 

 _Yes._ He whispered.

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Feathers, Quills, Beaks and Talons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dazzling things are annoying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm having way too much fun writing this, although my manuscript is all over the place. I need to edit some things as I write along, and I'll probably redo the work once all the chapters are up. It's the first high school AU I've ever written, and it's getting too long, so I'll just continue it as a separate project.
> 
> I want to keep my notes short so I have nothing much to add, except mentioning that there are some mixed references of random things from songs to movies, it's too obvious to deliberately footnote them one by one so unless I'm using direct quotes, I won't be adding any notes about the references.
> 
> **Thank you for the kudos! And comments!  
> Being a failure at checking inboxes, I tend to be a little slow to respond to anything, but really, thank you so much for reading. And wonderful Kudos, they really are quite pleasant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is something annoying about trying to remember a dream that makes you wake up in a foul mood. It is a difficult affair to point a finger on it, because everything is just a big barren blur inside his mind.

Bruce groans, waking up to a Sunday evening with his muscles aching. He can’t remember what made him curse when he opened his eyes, and frankly feels too restless to call it a good night’s sleep. Alfred, thankfully, brings him a glass of water, and the old butler passes him a note written in bright red that really hurts his fuzzy eyes.

 

_See you Monday darling._

It’s a simple enough message. He turns his head, just around enough to see an empty space beside him.

“Your guest left after you fell asleep, sir.” Alfred adds. “He asked if you could be, ‘sweet enough’ to return his jacket on Monday.”

Bruce blinks a few times before sinking back inside his blankets.

 

* * *

 

 

“ _It’s the start of March folks, and finally the end of February. This also means the moment everyone has been dreading has finally come knocking on the door; the Spring Senior Prom is on Friday._ ”

Edward Nigma drawls, announcing the date like he would give a human resources pep talk. The girls give Bruce a glance over the cafeteria table. He turns in their direction almost deliberately just so they would stop giving him the suggestive stares that was starting to get on his nerves.

“ _I really don’t need to give all the comprehensive details about something as petty as a prom, frankly I think it’s a waste of time and youth_.” Nigma nonchalantly continues in his sombre tone through the broadcast, it makes Bruce wonder once again who actually decided he’d be a good pick for the job. “ _And really, I don’t care. I really can’t find the enthusiasm to recite prom rituals on a Monday morning people, especially when I’m only here filling in for Basil, who picked a convenient time to come down with a fever. I really hope he dies this time, and will be playing the Requiem in his memory_.”

Bruce bites through an apple, his mind too empty to focus on the remorseful classical music playing after Edward’s rant. He pulls up his hoodie as he walks out to the back porch, passing next to Selina Kyle who joins him in a causal stride across the field. She’s still in her workshop gear, a needle and a thread hanging from her utility belt.

“Don’t tell me you’re planning to make me pretend to be your date again this year.” She smirks.

“You never said otherwise.”

“Wayne, the only reason I put up with the bimbos flaming on me every year for being your prom date is because you pay real good for my time. In fact, if you ever wondered why I never asked for extra with having to deal with the assholes you play pals with, it’s because I like you.”

Bruce goes over the thought in a few brief seconds he had to spare. On one hand, asking out one of the preppy girls or the cheerleaders isn’t hard. But that also means he needs to pay attention to her for the entire evening and stay in the godforsaken socialite circle for longer than he would like to. On the other hand, he has to admit it isn’t fair for Selina. He valued their friendship, enough to consider her side of the opinion.

“You have someone else in mind this year?”

“Oh you’ll like him. It’s not a romantic thing, personal business actually. He’s cute though.”

“You’re asking him, but you’re not interested in him.”

Bruce tries to not sound so sarcastic, but Selina rolls her eyes at him anyway.

“I am, just not romantically. Anyway, a heads up for you, so you can plan on calling the escort service this year. Tootles, Bruce.”

There is something mildly annoying about how cattish she sounds. They part ways at the split end of the corridors, Bruce waving her off as she blows a kiss at him.

 

* * *

 

 

“You can always ask Pam.” Harley suggests, looking up from her upside down magazine. “She seemed to like you.”

“If, by liking me means she dislikes me less than how much she hates other men, then yes. She likes me.” Bruce sighs, his own answer sounding too realistic even to himself. “I know what happened between her and Woodrue. It wouldn’t be right to ask her for something like this, just for my sake.”

Harley seems to understand, her expression turning solid for a moment before they return normal. Her voice is a lot softer when he speaks to him again. Bruce notices it easily because she was actually smiling, warmer than he has ever seen her do before.

The fact that he is considerate of Pamela seems to tell Quinn who Bruce Wayne really was, as much as he was oblivious to what that meant for her.

“Well, puddin’ know a few girls who might be interested.”

“Interested?”

“He usually knows who to ask when you request someone. The guys don’t like turning up alone, or some of them just don’t have the balls to ask a lass, so they pay to get hooked up in the last minute.”

Bruce is torn between two questions, and the words come out in more of a confused stutter when he manages to ask her the latter; “has he ever asked you out?”

-and he immediately regrets asking.

 

Perhaps it was something in Harley’s eyes that made him regret it so much, her tightening lips thinning with an edge. She flips a page, clearly trying to look placid.

“Forget I asked.” He quickly adds, looking away.

It was a question that lingered for quite some time. The insensitive dynamics between the two oddities was a garish one. It was too distant to call intimate, and too intimate to call distant.

“No, it’s okay." Harley finally answers, after a long pause. "It was a phase I suppose.” 

Her eyes were still unfocused on the magazine, her voice sounds rather puzzled than sad. It sparks an unwanted curiosity in the jock sitting next to her.

“I did love him, and I still do, more than anyone. But not like the first time I was infatuated, and even then it was too one sided to call it anythin' special.” Her fingers freeze half way though flipping over a page, as if trying to recall a long forgotten memory. “Now, I hate him as much as I love him. I sound crazy, maybe I really am insane. But that’s how things turn out, Wayne, with him. Now, we can’t get rid of each other, so we learn to co-exist.”

Bruce stares down, in a silence that feels almost too heavy. There is a scathing tone in her laughter, and her eyes are hard as much as she is amused. She puts down her magazine and leans close, looking Bruce straight into his steel blue eyes.

“Look, Bruce Wayne. I’ll tell you this, only because I know that voice my puddin’ uses when he talks to you.”

There is something nasty about the way she grins, something that even feels maliciously stable that Bruce doubts if she really was crazy.

“His obsession with you is going _to kill you_.”

 

* * *

 

 

The season in Gotham High is a dramatic one. The school was notorious for its misfits. Even the other nationals recognise them as one of the most problematic of all juvenile facilities. It lives up to the name, and the following days after the prom date announcements open up a giant can of worms.

Harvey and Nigma weren’t joking about the runaway prom dates, and Bruce is reduced to wondering why in the world he hasn’t noticed this happening for a long time. He catches a brief glimpse of unfortunate high school drama when people end up in the infirmary wing between sour outings, vengeful jealousies and bad date match-ups.

There was also the question of what the Joker could possibly be doing with all the money, because the only thing he spends his cash on are the funny tasting sweets and Belgian chocolates. Sure, his jacket was designer and he was fond of expensive boots, but he was a simple, messy creature who really couldn’t care less about the fact that he has been sustaining his life on stolen sandwiches (that probably belonged to Harvey) for a week.

It was a valid enough question, because compared to how much he rakes and spends, the clown always seemed a little broke. God knows where he pours the leaves on, because Bruce finds him scowling in front of the school canteen, debating between a slice of fudge cake and a brownie with a two dollar note in his hand.

Bruce tries not to notice, but offers him his untouched cake anyway, along with his excuse for being full.

“It’s no wonder you smell like a lump of sugar.” He frowns, watching Joker take a bite out of the cake like he would a piece of pizza.

“You smell like cologne.” Joker retorts, “Sweat and blood at other times.”

It makes Bruce shrug, as he unintentionally takes a sniff of his own odour. He doesn’t admit the cologne was just there to mask the smell of sweat and blood, which Alfred commented was potent after every Saturday he sneaks out of the mansion.

 

The afternoon starts raining again. The weather hasn’t been kind to Gotham even as March visits. The change in the seasons take its toll on the climate, and spring didn’t look like it was going to warm up soon until mid-March. Everyone just hopes Friday’s weather won’t be as much of a disaster their Wednesday was turning out to be. The grim rain doesn’t stop Joker from enjoying his cake, and Bruce is convinced that he’s okay with spending the rest of the afternoon watching him devour the baked goodness like a piece of steak.

“I love this time of the year. Prom is less corny when you get to watch the girls try murdering each other to get a piece of you.”

Bruce grimaces. “Maybe I’ll skip prom this year.”

“Great! Instead, we can practice for your interview when the news crew decides to dedicate this month’s school mag on your high profile disappearance, single-handedly breaking the hearts of sixty damsels who were waiting on your date proposal. FYI, they’ll probably put up the headlines that sound like ‘Flight of the PLAYBOY METEOR!’ or something.”

Joker doesn’t protest when Bruce brutally stuffs his mouth full with chocolate chip cookies, trying to prove a point. He chokes on them, but it doesn’t stop him from laughing madly away. They finish the lunch with vanilla soda, Bruce walks ahead just to express annoyance.

“Brucie, if you need help, you just need to ask.”

Bruce stops, abruptly enough to be facing the other over his shoulders. He doesn’t like how the Joker smiles at him, the way the corners of his grinning lips flash his fangs. Like he knows what he wants, like he wants him to say it.

“Everybody else does.”

The ground beneath them feels edgy. Something sharp pricks its way up to his spine. It oddly sounds like Nigma, an echo that deafens his mind. _The likes of you, Bruce Wayne, are always the birds of the same feather._ A steel accusation lodges itself into his head.

 

“I can’t.” Bruce admits, after a long chord of silence.  


It was barely an audible whisper, but it was clear enough to change the expression on Joker’s face. Bruce knows that face. Many times he’s seen that expression in the mirrors, and the fact that Joker was mimicking his face makes him smile, amused at the quirky confidence.

“What are you afraid of?” The smudged red lips ask without laughter. Bruce is only too happy to admit to this particular truth.

“Becoming ‘everybody else’,” he confesses.  


Joker could have laughed away at the moment. Ignore it completely as a joke. But he didn’t. Instead, the enigma pushes a hand through Bruce’s hair, softly patting through them. He purrs. And it becomes a sound that drapes Bruce with a sense of soothing calm.  


“You’re not another somebody, Bruce Wayne.”

 

It ruptures a fire in his stomach.

 

* * *

 

 

It is Thursday night when Bruce picks up his nicest blazer and finds himself staring at his Rolex watch in front of the carnival entrance.

There is a parade show being hosted late evening, which would explain the massive crowd lining up at the ticket booth. It makes it difficult for Bruce to keep an eye out for the face he was waiting for, and the fact that he arrived twenty minutes early didn’t exactly help.  


“Nice Sunday best, Brucie boy.” Joker pops up, his elbow nudging playfully against Bruce’s broader shoulders. The rogue’s smile looks uniquely exotic under the bright neon, Bruce always sort of forgets how tall he actually is, only a few inches shorter than him to be exact, much to the fact that the scrawny frame always felt a little brittle compared to Bruce’s own well-built fitness.

“Nice hat.” Wayne retorts, flicking a finger up the other’s white baseball cap. Joker giggles at the remark, before dragging his arm all the way inside the Gotham amusement park.

It’s weird to see Joker among the crowd. He always seems to stick out like the world refuses to integrate with his existence. The funky upbeat music playing through the loud speakers does nothing to lessen the sheer noise of people, Bruce must admit that despite the gloomier exterior or the city, Gotham loved the colourful atmosphere as much as the people who make the time to attend the Spring Carnival.

Joker loves the buzzing in his ears, and Bruce can’t help but feel amused at how childish he looks. He tries not to linger too long on the scene where his pale faced companion asks for three balloons from a party clown. _Thank you payaso._ Joker’s poor imitation of Dorrance does make Bruce laugh.

“I never understood merry go rounds when I was smaller.”

Bruce raises his brows, letting Joker reach across their plastic horses and takes a chunk out of his candy floss. The green eyes narrow into a smile, it was one of those rare moments when his eyes smiled along with his lips.  


And it looks pretty, in a disturbingly unconventional way.  


“The whole point of riding something always was to move forwards, not round and around.”

“How old was this thought?”

“Can’t quite recall, it was probably the year the woman I was living with hanged herself inside the bathroom. So it was when I was twelve.”

The background blurs in a soft line outside the merry round. Twelve was the age of a very little boy who was struggling to feel emotions. Now, Bruce imagines another boy in the same world, watching a dead corpse dangling above a bath tub. He quizzes if he felt anything too.

“Some things aren’t meant to move forward.” Bruce concludes, holding out the candy floss for Joker to lick off.

The pale face considers the answer with a frown, pulling his head back with a sugar coated finger between his teeth.

“Do you think it’s a choice to move forward?”

“No.”

“Well then Brucie, being stuck in the past must be a blast for you, to be lingering that long.”

Bruce cracks a smile, and he ends up chortling all the way through the ride.  


To be honest, this was the first time Bruce understands why people love the carnival. He enjoys watching his green haired companion sing to the goldfish inside the giant display tanks, watch him land a surprisingly good shot at the prize shooting range. Having fun seemed like a stranger knocking at his doors, and frankly Bruce can’t remember the last time he was having ‘fun’.

He doesn’t even realise this was the action of enjoyment until he was goaded into a paintball fight. It’s weird to feel human. It’s weird to feel his age and youth.  


Bruce walks out of the paintball course with the grand prize tucked beneath his arm, wiping away the neon paint off his cheeks. Joker is too busy laughing his ribs off, and falls down flat on his back when Bruce grumpily throws the giant plush bat at his face.

It only succeeds in muffling the laughter, and Bruce pouts just because he can. He lets Joker wipe away the excess paint stuck on his face with the back of his purple sleeves.

“’Happy?” Bruce mutters.

“I think I’ll name this one Batsy.”

Joker giggles, holding up the piece of fibre like he would a baby.  


“You know, you’re truculent when you fight.”

“Is it a good thing?”

The reply makes the clown shrug, the two follow each other out of the tents and out back onto the isle filled with colourful stands. Bruce lets the children cut in front of him, who have their eyes stuck on the parade performing across the sidewalk.  


“I’ve noticed on several occasions, besides you getting hit by a paintball being hilarious, it just makes me wonder who you are when you snarl like that. It certainly wasn’t Bruce Wayne.”

The parade booms with a volatile energy, the drumbeat shakes the ground like a quake in the mantle.

“I was hoping you knew.” Bruce whispers. “Because I don’t know.”  


Under the crackling fireworks, the smile painted on Joker’s face looks like a ball of cold fire. His hands are closer to him in the instant he blinks, the spider like fingers wrapping around Bruce’s wrists and dragging him forward with a tug. Joker leads the steps, leaving Bruce careless of where he goes.  


“Let me show you something.”

 

* * *

 

 

Gotham is beautiful. No matter what others say, Wayne breathes her scene like a masterpiece in his eyes. The ugliness of her brim and dark architecture, the asymmetrical lines, uneven sky scrapers with too many windows, they all just add to the beauty Gotham is.

It was new to watch it like this. His breathing goes rigid at the sight, the night of Gotham looking cloudless and bright. From where he stood, the lights and smoke are all part of what he loved about the city. The Ferris wheel creaks as he pushes his hands against the glass, eyes alight at the full view of Gotham.

“I used to hate the view.”

Bruce mutters, his frosted breath clouding the glass surface against his lips. Joker cocks his head, grinning wide down at the landscape.  


“You learn to love it when you realize it’s the only thing you have left.”

He says it almost too easily, even for Bruce, who struggles to admit it’s true. The young Wayne can’t decide if he should feel disturbed at the fact Joker knows the thoughts inside his head. But the subtle understanding was still there. Allowing him to accept- that they just knew, things, - about each other.

So he nods, quietly.  


“I’ve got to come here more often.” The bigger one chuckled, prying himself away from the window and sitting down onto the seat beside his pale faced crony.

“What? Brucie, don’t tell me you’ve never brought a girl to a carnival before. _Yeesh_. And they tell me you’re a playboy.”

“To be honest, they’re pretty satisfied with a five star buffet and VIP cinema.”

“Fair point,” Joker frowns. “Speaking of which, word is you finally picked a date for prom. And I just love your choice for this year.”

Bruce allows the other to cackle away while he crosses his arms in discomfort.  


It was an average Thursday in the afternoon, and the fact that Selina Kyle has asked another hunk to be her date set an alarm off to the other girls who immediately picked it up as a sign that Bruce Wayne was now open and up for invitation.

Thwarting several doves in the corridors off on their proposal didn’t do anything to lighten his tired and foul mood, the jock having to evacuate inside the library to get away from his big date problem which was slowly turning into a potential disaster.

He just wasn't expecting he’d be asking the librarian there to be his prom date.

It happened. And Bruce tries to remember why; he half succeeds in convincing himself that he was in a rush. She was a nice girl – although he doesn’t know a thing about her – he already forgot her name, _damn it,_ Bruce thinks.

He remembers her standing there, beside the shelves and doing her job. She had thin wrists, a little too pale to be healthy, and an overall unremarkableness except a pair of light green eyes. The colour wasn’t exactly as stark emerald as the ones he wanted them to be, but her pale fingers resembled enough of-  


_Him_  


Bruce snaps away from the thought as if someone had stabbed him in the eye. It burned him, and a scar burns where he thought would sting forever. His cold blue eyes find themselves locked in gazes with a curious pair of greens.

“She was…” Bruce starts, not knowing why he was swallowing the lump down his throat. “A nice girl.”

_Damn it._

Bruce wants to kick himself. He doesn’t even know why. Someone needed to explain to him quick that he wasn’t at all bothered at the lack of reaction the other was showing.

Despite the turmoil going on inside Wayne’s inner world of demise, Joker looks thoughtful enough for the three seconds he manages to feign seriousness.

“Now you really need my help, which is ironic,” The clown giggles. “Unless you find a fantastic excuse to walk out of your groupies who’ll have all the fun and joy poking at your date all through the night until she has to strip for them ‘ _good friends_ ’ of yours.”

Bruce really doesn’t like how close to home those words came. He’s too busy imagining the worst before noticing Joker lean close into his face, making the sharp jab in his guts return without an invitation. A noticeable flinch doesn’t stop Joker from pulling his hand around his cheeks, fingers tickling the edge of his skin.  


The familiar scent of grapes and sugar return to float beneath his senses, it’s a curious scent. Bruce remembers the first time their faces were this close. Upon the rooftop, hanging on the railings, half of him wanting to see what would happen if he let himself hurt the clown.

“Say you need my help.”

 _Say you need me. Use me. Use me. Use me._  


Bruce can almost feel himself slipping, from control, from the suppression. Giving up and laughing out so loud that he would shake the whole Ferris wheel. It would be so easy. His lips are shaking.

“The last time I admitted I need your help,” he finally mutters, voice dry. “You showed me how you’ll throw yourself off a roof just to prove I can hurt you.”

“You can. But that’s not what’s stopping you from asking. Isn’t it?”

“I wish it was.”

Bruce is the first to break the eye contact. It feels sheepish, to even be having this conversation. Bruce Wayne was anything but an honest person. His whole life revolved around a series of lies that protected him from showing the world what he really became the night after Crime Alley.

And Joker, the face laughing at his pathetic lies, stands like the snake with an apple, coiled around the tree of Eden. He was always the one offering him a way out, an exit. Something he has never considered before. And Wayne simply was not ready. At all. He never will be.

 

Always too afraid to move forward.

 

Joker sees all this in his eyes, the pitch black bottom of the deepest part of his ocean. So the clown retracts, pulling himself away, a smile on his lips and whispering that it was okay.

 

“I can wait.” He says.

 

* * *

 

 

“You know, tonight was fun.”

Joker gives a cheerful slap on Bruce’s back, who simply nods. The clown learns to interpret the small nods and grunts as a sign of stoic satisfaction, and is aloof enough to look like a happy balloon. It amuses Bruce, somehow.

“I’ll drive you home.”

“Just reminding you, the Bowery is quite far off.”

“I’ve got gas.”

“Oh you material people of wealth,” The green haired rogue smirks, making Bruce shrug, fingers already around his car keys. “So entitled, I must say.”

“I’ve made the effort to pick a car today that’s got cheap bumpers.”

It makes Joker laugh.  


On several occasions, Bruce has wondered about the uglier side of Gotham which people labelled the East End. He had discussed with Alfred about the future investment on the area, plans for when he became a legal adult. It’s a minor surprise that he was in fact, close to becoming a legal adult, and was now going over the thought again. It never hurts to try and fix something, even if the place was nothing but a gloomy memory for him.

Compared to Crime Alley, the Bowery was a less visited place by the Gothamites. Half of the reason was because one would have to necessarily pass through the Crime Alley, but the other half of the reason was because it was not a place worth visiting unless you were desperate for a cheap whore who'd gladly show off their lewd naked skin in broad daylight for a few bucks.

Newcomers of Gotham steer far and clear away from the place, the filthy neon infested neighbourhood wasn’t the friendliest of places to be for anyone. Those that don’t belong in the Bowery stood out like a blotch of red on white shirts. The streets greet him with the usual glum in the atmosphere, and Bruce tries not to delve too deep on how Joker fares in this place.

It would feel like intruding his personal boundaries, and he’s afraid that might just drive him off.  


Contrary to what Bruce feels, Joker looks quite at ease with his surroundings. The clown looks on fondly at the unwelcoming streets and dirty fuming brothels, “they have this satanically good pizza place around in the corner. I would get you some, but I’ve got tabs there, so I’d rather not run in with them until next week.”

The honest bit of information does make Bruce confused on what he should be feeling – worried or confused.  


Joker has a way of saying abnormal things in a casually normal way, like he would talk about the weather or tell someone the time. He motions for the driver to pull up near a rundown thrift shop, the buildings overcrowding the background stands like brick walls. Bruce isn’t too sure if they are actually apartments, but Joker gets off the car anyway.

Bruce wishes the other wouldn’t be so confident in everything he does, and then he wouldn’t have to feel so guilty about seeing him a tad bit vulnerable sometimes. The level of obliviousness he shows was just, indescribable.

“Want me to walk you up?”

“What, you want a kiss on your cheeks for a great date night?”

Bruce wishes his ears would listen to him and stop going red. It takes some awkward seconds for the young Wayne to recompose himself through the hoarse laughter from the clown, who, by the time Bruce manages to get his straight face back on, was trotting back up to his car.  


Elena was ten years old when she got picked to give the birthday boy his class present and peck on his cheeks. Bruce remembers her, with straw coloured hair and dainty hazel eyes. She seemed a little afraid under the boy’s steel cold eyes, icy blue and emotionless underneath his fragile smile. Children are sensitive to certain emotions, and Elena probably wasn’t even sure what was making her so anxious.

Bruce remembers her small girlish lips, the way they felt like soft rubber on his skin. The tiny vibrations of shyness between her breaths.  


His was nothing similar to hers. It was quick, sharp and confident. A strand of dry breath whistling beside his ears, cold and poisonous.

His lips, oily with matte lipstick smudged around the tips of his fangs. A peck, he gave at the tip of Bruce’s nose, a deliberate and playful snub that makes his pale face break away with laughter.  
  
Bruce pulls back, more in surprise at the hot jab at the back of his throat than anything else. His fingers touch where the smudged lips have pressed against, he tries to control the blood from rushing into it and save himself the embarrassment of showing off a very bright Rudolf nose.

“A little warning next time?” Bruce grunts, fixing his broken posture.

Joker gives him that sly little seagull eyes, his pupils pressed pleasantly between his smoky lids.

“Then it wouldn’t be a surprise.” He snickers, backing away from the car. “We should do this again sometime. I wouldn’t mind a five star buffet, if I get to see you get hit by a meatball.”

Bruce rolls his eyes. “Just be ready to get tortured with a soapy romance film you’ll have to sit through afterwards.”

 

They chuckle their goodbyes, and Bruce only hesitates a moment before driving away.  
Joker waves him off cheerfully by the sidewalk, until the car disappears out of his sight.

 

* * *

 

 

“ _No, no, no. You look like an idiot_.” Joker says, with such a peculiar level of bluntness, that Edward doesn’t even have the rights to feel offended.  


Nigma is not allowed the moment to refute when Harley throws away his bowler hat somewhere far off into the distance, while Joker throws him an amber silk tie.

“But it was Italian made.” Eddie tries, and gets shot down faster than he can say ‘Borsalino’.

“I hated your hat since the day you were born.”

“Yeah, Mistah Riddles. I just didn’t want to hurt ya feelin’s, but today, it just gotta’ go.”

Bruce can’t help but think how savage the two were, they were butchering Nigma who very unhappily obliged to wear the tie Joker picked out for him.  


Five hours from prom and school was deserted, except for a few members who were on the prep team like Edward, who got assigned to host the prize giving in the place of very much still sick Basil. Eddie abhors the idea of course, but the MC crew was having a good laugh over his dilemma and decided it would be funny to cast him on the stage.

“I hate it with passion, and it’s a waste of time.” He claims, cleaning the rims of his glasses. “Everyone knows no one will be sane enough by the time prize giving announcements start, the supervisors don’t even care if students are sneaking in alcohol. Mostly because they’re the rich kids with power daddies.”

Ouch. Bruce pulls his lips tight. He had to agree with that one.

“I don’t care much for the dance anyway,” Harley dotes, passing a comb over to a disgruntled Eddie. “Me and Pam’s just gonna’ hang out in the garden and get high on pop rocks or somethin’.” Bruce raises an eyebrow at her direction, to which she replies with a shrug. “What we do every year.”

“Still sounds way more enjoyable than my evening…” Bruce admits through his teeth, watching the two pale maniacs work their magic on Edward’s hair.

“Everyone has such sob stories for the prom, where’s the fun at?” Joker frowns, “though I suppose having to put up with Mister grumpy Dent all evening is another sob story, I’ll try to make him dance this time.”  


Something cracks on the desk, Bruce covers up the broken piece of something that he was fiddling with when Harley glances at the noise.

“Harvey?”

“You’d think it’s weird he can’t be bothered to ask his actual prom date to stop him from murdering everyone every time Maroni’s band of dicks take a shot at him. Well, he asked me to come anyway, so I’m having fun, Harvey’s anger issues isn’t stopping me.”

The question _why,_ nearly succeeds in being blurted out by Bruce, who has his arms crossed to somehow vaguely indicate he wants to prove he doesn’t care.

“Two-face Dentie gets better at the after party though, at his place.” Harley cuts in, just in time. “I can get you an invitation if you want.”

“He and I have this awkward thing going on called ex-friends.”

“Oh.” She nods, thankfully dropping the topic.  


It does nothing to help Bruce let go of his strange frustration building up.  


Edward is in no hurry to leave, but his finished hair forces the poor soul to step out. It cues at the time and Bruce really, can think of better things to do than spend time prettying his attire. But he remembers his date, who probably has been waiting for him for at least an hour to show up. Joker and Harley coo him off with their sweet melodic goodbyes and see you laters. It cheers him up a little bit.  


By the time Bruce has finished his ride to the mansion and walks out of Alfred’s grooming, the butler’s magic lets him step out fully dressed and looking slick in the midnight blue tux. Alfred comments this situation feels like a scene in the Cinderella, Bruce decides not to reply.

“Tell me this isn’t Italian made.” Bruce mutters, letting Alfred work the finishing touches on his tie.

“Funny you should ask, Armani, sir. Your lady is waiting for you on the parlour.”

“Right.”

It’s like a slap on his cheeks, Bruce wasn’t sure he was ready to be facing his date yet. He didn’t even have the right face ready, and the fact that he hasn’t said a single word to her after he asked her to be his date didn’t help matters. But he’s surprised by how the calm comes easier than he thought it would when they are facing each other. She was still the same nice girl he met on Thursday afternoon.

Everyone goes out of their way to look special on a special day, and Wayne could tell she put on an effort to look her best tonight. She smiles, like a shy little lady, long pale fingers tucked neatly between her leather purse. Her dress is pleasant, a respectable garment in a shade of deep blue. She had her dark brown hair up in a bun, strands of loose hair flicked behind her ears. It makes her green eyes stand out, and Bruce spends a little too long on staring at those light olive irises. The red tint in her face is too evident, and Bruce can’t stop himself from feeling guilty for the conviction forming inside his mind- that they aren’t the same green.

They never will be.

He feels like an awful asshole for putting an oblivious girl in the position of his fantasy. Bruce silently promises her that he’ll treat her well, just to make up for the selfish reasons he chose her.

“Shall we?” _Come on Bruce,_ “…Jane?” He tried.

The girl smiles rather awkwardly up at him. “Jeanne, actually.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Please, don’t be. It’s alright.”

Bruce was feeling tired already.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a zoo under the flooding lights and social atmosphere.

The cobras are hissing in their well-placed dresses, miniscule strings digging into their scales to make the slim curves look beautiful. They’re at the top of the food chain, tearing glances from snake eyed baboons, red faced from the heat and cheap beer the others have managed to sneak into the dancing hall.

Everything else is just the same old socialising square, the sensational music and chattering echoes deaf inside Bruce’s ears. He sits in the middle of a full packed table with his usual group and baseball team, their dates throwing in rowdy remarks of glee and laughter.

His date, is either trying to overlook the fact that Bruce’s interest is slipping too easily at whatever the insulting conversation is going on around the table, or she wants to get out of there as much as he does. Bruce can’t really tell. She’s a nice girl, too nice to admit she doesn’t want to be where she is now, enduring the cobra eyed stares from the cheerleaders sitting across the table.

Bruce wishes he could be more considerate towards her, but his dulling senses are being waved like a tsunami over at the presence of Harvey Dent near the punch table. Out of the corner of his eyes, his guts clench at the figure standing next to the scarred preppy, pale faced and grinning wide between the thuggish looking gang over at the darker side of the hall.

He tries not to notice, but it’s near impossible. The thing buried inside his ego just refuses to let the green haired presence pass.  
  
It was as if another creature living there wanted him to notice, wanted him to see, catch the clown’s attention.  
  
It takes some effort to stamp on the urge, and Bruce compromises with the desire by sneaking peeks at the rogue when he can.

The three piece suit compliments him too well, making the curious creature inside his mind chuckle at the thought of Joker getting measured for a suit and asking it to be a perfect shade of deep amethyst and emerald. The imaginary expression on the tailor’s face makes Bruce chortle.

He picked a good time to chortle, because the others were laughing along with him, and doesn’t have to explain why he suddenly broke into a smile. He has no idea what the conversation was about, but one of them turn an eye towards the corner to spot Harvey arguing with some of the guys who Bruce recognised was from Maroni’s clique.  


“Damn, is that Dent?” the jocks pull out their remarks, handing Bruce a cup of sneaked in beer. “Wish I’d stop seeing him around in class so much, he gives me the creeps.”

“Aw fuck you pussy. You afraid of a low-end ripper?”

_“Shove off.”_

“But really, he turned into such a damn failure. Still popular with the East End kids though, explains why all the slum greasers are following him around. They think they’ll be getting something off of him once he makes it big in society after school. Guy got too many cronies it’s actually threatening.”

“Carmine ain’t gonna’ have that.”

“That’s why they’ve been douching over so much ya idiot. Heard they had fights breaking out during free period, one of them got stabbed with a pencil so they had to call an ambulance. I think he's looking to come down with Sally and Carmine.”

The tone of the conversation fails to catch Bruce’s attention, he already knows most of the strange things that go on inside Gotham High, and the school was a literal compact edition of the city itself. He sometimes worried over the direction it was taking. See where they'll all end up in the future.  


For now, he was paying too much attention to how Harvey’s squabbling was becoming rougher. Bruce frowns at the way one of the thugs push Joker back, the clown laughing as he stumbles backwards. One of the supervising staff step into the scene, but Harvey waves them off in some indirect exchange which Bruce can’t make out what it was about.

“Yeah, but still, it doesn’t mean he has to drag around _that lunatic_ in public.”  


Bruce snaps his head around, the glass only half touching his lips. His baseball team doesn’t seem too affected by his sudden acute attention. They’re too slow to notice anyway.

“The clown.” Bruce mutters, deliberately chugging down the glass in one quick motion. He can feel his date shifting uncomfortably besides him.

“That fucking freak, useful, but creepy as damn hell.”

The others break into laughter, going back to share the tales that Bruce shuts away from. He clenches the glass, a little too hard, veins popping up at the back of his hands as the music drowns the sound of cursing and bickering near the corner of the halls.  


_“Wonder if he sucked Dent’s dick yet.”_

And the piercing crash startles the girls, one of them letting off a small shriek that returns Bruce to the material world. He apologizes with one of his most winning grins- _oops, slipped. –_ And quickly shoves the broken glass away with a joke that makes them laugh again.

His date seems concerned, Bruce manages a blatant lie that he was okay, and excuses himself away from the table to clean up his shirt.  


There’s a screech in his ears, and the irritation causes him to lose his sense of direction. Brooding somewhere near the fire exit is always a good solution to pick up the pieces of himself that he left broken around, Bruce manages to straighten himself up before approaching the balcony, where he finds the ebony haired girl looking down at him under her nose.

Selina’s date is cute, a little shorter than her, but stocky with a soft smile. He’s blonde, which distracts Bruce for a few seconds before Selina catches his quizzical look on his face and ends up bursting into mirth.

“Thomas, Bruce Wayne, you know him yeah? Bruce, this is Thomas. Tom, excuse us for a second, because my friend here seems to have something to say, apparently it can’t wait since he doesn’t even know his fingers are bleeding.” Selina turns her eyes down, where Bruce follows to find his fingers dripping acid.

“Yes.” Bruce offers, flitting across the balcony with Selina, ignoring the blood. “Excuse me. Look, can I drop,” _Damn it._ Bruce forgot her name again, “my date with you just for a few seconds?”

Selina cocks an eyebrow, if her crossed arms weren’t any a hint, Bruce doesn’t know what is, to quickly come up with a valid excuse.

“I’m not going to dump her on you.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t Bruce. The poor thing must be having an awful time putting up with the bunch in your circle of dickheads. I’m actually surprised you asked the book girl of all people, thought things much?”

Now was not the time to be getting scolded by mama cat, Bruce scowls despite knowing he had no one else to blame but himself.

“Look, can we really have this discussion later? You’re right. She’s having an awful time, and I can’t care enough to show her I’m not an asshole. I’m an inconsiderate bastard, and I need her to stay with you until I sort some things out and drive her to dinner or something.”

“Hmm.” Kyle frowns.

“I’ll buy you that dress.”

“Now we’re talking. I’ll email you the receipt Wayne. Your date is staying with us for ten minutes, and then I get a taxi for her to go home if you disappear. We good?”

Bruce nods curtly as he thanks her and make his way back into the hall. The music has shifted to some electrical techno and the noise isn’t helping him, he finds his group still locked into a half-drunk frenzy.  


His date is awkwardly trying to fit in the pit he left her in, much to his guilt. It does make him feel a tiny bit remorseful, her quivering green eyes just adding a disaster to his conscience. The frustrated Wayne nearly snarls at the other unrecognisable girl who pushes in between, wrapping her arms around his, pressing her warm breasts up against his body. “Bruce? What’s wrong? Is your date boring you?” She asks, and there’s a thorn in her voice that he comes to despise.

Bruce has to stop himself from using more force than necessary to unstick her from his arm, apologizing with a faked grin before pulling out his poor date out of the table. They ignore the whistling behind their backs, and Bruce is saying sorry as soon as they escape out of the earshot.

It’s mostly on his hard thinking forced out of guilt that allows him to remember her name, and Bruce hates himself more than anything at the look on her face.

“We’ll skip the evening events and prize giving. You and me, have some nice dinner somewhere else. You’d like that?” Bruce soothes. Hands gently firm on her shoulders.

The girl is silent for a few seconds before looking at him with eyes he really wishes she wouldn’t, and asks: “Am I boring you?”

Bruce is conflicted. No, she wasn’t boring him. He didn’t expect anything from her, and that was probably his biggest mistake. Her green eyes are a reminder of how much of a sick twisted person he actually was.

He sighs, and tries to soften his expression when he replies with a voice that most people find it to be warm and caring.

“No. You’re not. I’ve just had a long night yesterday, and just a little tired. I’m sorry, I should be more considerate.”

 _You damn sure should be._ The sarcastic voice echoes inside his head, the other half of his darker ego scowling at his dishonesty. It’s hard to tell a non-existent voice to shut up.  


Selina takes the small girl under her wing. Bruce is just thankful that her date was willing to help out- she was right, he likes the guy.

Getting out of the jungle is difficult when he stands out in the crowd of dancers, the courteous rejections doing nothing to put off the girls approaching his way. When Bruce finally manages to track down Harvey, he stands by the wall, alone and grumpy. Joker is nowhere to be seen, and the rest of the roughies were gone.  


Harvey notices him in his direction. The preppy doesn’t offer him a greeting, but does pass him a glass of water with a snide look in his eyes.

“Better get the alcohol down, Wayne. There’s a dean down the entrance who’s giving hell to your mates.”  


Bruce blinks down at the glass. He takes it in his hands, unable to let go of that stringy discomfort lingering between them. He knows why Harvey broke away their friendship, and the reason was not entirely because Harvey turned sour on his own. It took him a while to know why, but knowing just made it worse for him to repair anything with Dent. Now Bruce wasn’t sure who the other was to him. Frankly speaking, his dislike for the preppy was growing, and Bruce just doesn’t want to admit the reason yet.

“Where’s Joker?”

Harvey narrows his eyes. “Bathroom. Got cream on his clothes when Decker threw a plate at him.”

“Threw a,” Bruce immediately scowls, a sigh escaping his lips. He doesn’t know where the eruption was coming from, but it was unpleasant enough to irritate him. There is no rational reason behind his dislike. It was rather petty and childish. “Dent. The shit you’re starting up at school, it’s getting malicious.”

“Carmine and Sal’s not complaining. They’re not exactly the saints either at this point.”

“PTA’s not happy.”

“Cut the righteous shit, Wayne, what’s your point?”

 

“Stop dragging him,” he growls through gritted teeth, the rational half of him wanting to stop it from coming out, “into your bloody mess.”

It comes out faster than he could keep it in. Harvey practically bristles, right after he looks straight through him with widened eyes.

 

“Yeah? Who named you a fucking clown sitter now?” the grimier one sneers first, his eyes flashing at the cold steel blue.  
  
“What do you know about him anyway? I bet my last penny on you not knowing shit, don’t tell me what to do with things you have no clue about.”  


At this point, both of them are slowly building up on the confused disarray of fury that they have no idea where it came from. Perhaps it was the lack of communication since their fall out. Perhaps it was something else entirely. But at that moment, Bruce absolutely hates Harvey, and Harvey same the other way around. They stand their ground, stamping their hind legs, ready to snarl.

 

Until they get interrupted by a girl who frantically tries to catch Bruce’s attention. Both boys turn their head around at the same time, looking down at the small girl with dark brown hair. Bruce recognises her, his date, but she wasn’t crying the last time he left her with Selina. He sees her eyeliner melting under her tears, and suddenly snaps back into alarm as he turns his attention towards her.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” He asks, trying to get her to stop whimpering. The girl looks a mess, and Harvey has enough sense to retract his anger and step away, giving the girl a space she could breathe.

“B-Bruce, _I’m sorry, I’m sorry,_ I wasn’t trying to break down, I- I, I just needed some time alone, and, god, Bruce, please, help,” She starts, not aware that she was making minimal sense.

“Slow down. Tell me what’s wrong, are you hurt?”

“No, no, but, Bruce, I was, in the bathroom, and the, g-guys, didn’t look like they were from our school, they-they recognized me as your date, said some t-things, and he, stepped in to help me, god please help him Bruce, please help him-”

It’s hard to make sense of her words, but she was talking. And something harsh pricks his side, a bad premonition kicks into his reflexes.

 

“Jeanne, what,”

She cuts in, shaking his arm desperately.

 

 

“Bruce, just p-please, they dragged him back into the boy’s restroom and I can’t tell the staff, they’ve hurt him quite bad- the, he comes to the library often,  
  
the senior with the green hair.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to Tuck, Tukutz and CrooksAndHoles, for inviting me to the blogging alternate universe collaboration project. Lots of love. It was originally a one-shot for the entry, but it's getting too long, so I'm editing chapters and posting it anyway.
> 
> Big love to the readers who decided to give this one a go, I appreciate you.


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